A switch went off in Dave’s head and he suddenly found himself inside a car wrestling with an armed man who had allegedly just robbed a jewelry store in Richmond Centre Mall.

The man was fighting to free himself from Dave’s grasp and trying to twist his wrist around to take aim with a gun.

Dave, who works in building maintenance, was having none of it. And he told the man to quit his squirming.

Underneath them was a woman, who the suspect had allegedly tried to carjack moments before. Collectively, they formed an awkward dog pile in the mall’s parking lot: legs and arms hanging half in and half out of the car.

“Get out of the goddamn car, I’ve got a gun!” Dave, 54, remembers the man yelling at the woman before being “football” tackled into the car.

As the man squirmed, Dave’s resolve and grip on the man’s wrist tightened. He wasn’t going to let go. Then the gun went off.

TRACKED SUSPECTS

The evening of Nov. 6 had started so much differently.

Rewind 15 minutes to the inside of Richmond Mall: Dave and his wife are wandering around after a meal of Chinese food.

“I thought, ‘Oh great, look what is happening here, just like on TV,’” Dave said. “One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was across the street and involved with what I was doing.”

Exactly what he was doing didn’t quite register for Dave until after Mounties showed up and hauled the suspect away.

He says he tracked one of the suspects through the parking lot, thinking he would use his cellphone to alert police. He watched the suspect try unsuccessfully to carjack another victim. When the man tried for a second time, Dave decided to act.

“When I noticed he was reaching in to try and yank her out of the car, a switch just went off and I said, ‘There is my opportunity to stop it,’” Dave said. “And I dove in on top of him.”

During the struggle, Dave said the man did everything in his power to get free, including sinking his teeth into Dave’s wrist.

Miraculously, the shot that went off didn’t strike anyone. Another bystander eventually jumped in and helped Dave detain the man until police arrived.

Three men have since been charged in connection with the robbery of Ben Moss Jewellers.

Ty Burgess, 29, of Vancouver, and Shane Buckner, 36, of Mission, have been charged with armed robbery and wearing a disguise to commit an indictable offence.

Keith Macdonald, 32, of Coquitlam, has also been charged with armed robbery and possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm. All three will be back in court Nov. 19.

‘SITUATION NEEDED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF’

Standing five-foot-nine inches and weighing about 160 pounds, Dave said he had a hot temper in his younger years that has cooled with age.

So what made him act, and was he scared?

“I just look at it as a situation that needed to be taken care of [and] I’m glad it turned out the way it did,” Dave said, adding that he doesn’t think of himself as a hero.

“It just happened so quick that I just didn’t even think twice.”

So quick, in fact, that Dave’s wife didn’t know what happened or where he went until he came back into the mall.

“She was worried because she didn’t know where I went,” he said. “But when she got the overall picture, she looked at me as if to say she understood why I did it.”

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Read this story a while ago, glad to read that the other culprits have been apprehended. Kudos to Dave for his actions. It could have easily gone bad, but kudos to him and thankfully there was nobody hurt.